Things to do in London this weekend (2-3 May)

The Southbank’s graffitied skate mecca is about as iconic as skate parks get. This spring, the Southbank Centre is celebrating 50 years of the concrete space beneath the Queen Elizabeth Hall that was first adopted by skaters in 1976. To tell the story of the legendary park, the Southbank centre has collaborated with the skate community to identify key events, figures and moments that have shaped the space, bringing all the stories together in one mega exhibition. Skate 50 will comprise photographs, films, sound art and animations, featuring contributions from Winstan Whitter, Dan Magee, Lev Tanju, Jack Brooks, the Keep Rolling Project, Beatrice Dillon and Sofia Negri. 

This 1968 play by the great dramatist of the fractured American Dream, Arthur Miller, is compelling in its uncompromising cynicism, originally written as a rebuke to how Miller perceived the abstract, consequence-free tone of 1960s theatre. New York cop Victor (Elliot Cowan) has returned with his wife, Esther (Faye Castelow), to his long-dead father’s home before it’s demolished, re-opening old wounds. A heavyweight creative team makes the weight of this past almost tangible and it’s thrilling to see talented actors really knock chunks out of each other, with the director excavating every ounce of pain from their performances. There’s some seriously meaty material here about how we take ownership of our lives when value is relative.

Ye Ye’s on Wardour Street leans into a homely, slightly weathered charm – offering genuinely tasty, bang-for-your-buck food. Meaning grandfather’s in Chinese, the place is an inviting testament to its family-friendly name. Founder Jianxing Xiao (Sean) claims to visit each of its four London locations every day to ensure quality is consistent. And unlike the one-in-one-out chaos of most Chinatown mainstays, you’ll instead receive an enthusiastic, grandparent-worthy welcome at the door. There’s a food hall feel and food arrives within minutes of ordering. Ye Ye’s ‘Golden Supreme Beef Rib Noodle’ delivers. A generous slab of meat, it’s sweet, tender, and easily slides off the bone into a rich, slow-cooked broth. It’s pretty hard to fault this place. 

Escape reality through maximum immersion and experience 42 masterpieces from 29 of the world’s most iconic artists, each reimagined beyond belief, through cutting-edge technology. Situated in Marble Arch, Frameless plays host to four unique galleries with hypnotic visuals and a dazzling score. Enjoy 90 minutes of surreal artwork from Bosch, Dalí and more for just £23.60!

Save 20% on tickets, only through Time Out Offers 

Isn’t it lovely when things turn out better than you imagined? Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway are reunited for this updated on the classic fashion world caper, which has all the sass and energy of the 2006 original but none of the lazy repetition and box-ticking fan service that blights this kind of reboot (Tron, Ghostbusters, any number of Halloween movies). Dig your cerulean sweater for a cinema trip with undeniable style. 

‘Jesus Christ… She’s back.’ Imagine these words in a broad Cornish accent, with a very long pause in between, as a local discovers a little fishing boat washed up on a quiet harbour. Picture this shot on 16mm film, in director Mark Jenkin’s signature analogue style. And so the scene is set for a time-twisting fishing village mystery: one that may never be solved, but remains atmospheric and intriguing throughout. Rose of Nevada is very much its own film. Rooted in fishing folklore, it muses on myths and mystery, on the loss of livelihoods and loved ones. Eerie yet entertaining, it’s Mark Jenkin’s most accessible film so far, while remaining anchored to his core Cornish principles.

Artist Sian Fan’s new multidisciplinary installation at Somerset House explores how magic and mysticism manifests in our consumer-driven world. From TikTok tarot readings, to Pokémon cards, Chinese fortune knots and video game talismans, Fan’s references range from pop culture to the historical. She draws on the myths, folklore, and storytelling traditions found in contemporary gaming and popular culture, Fan highlights how spirituality persists in these ultra-modern spaces. 

Broadwick Soho arrived with serious flair in 2023 and has been serving up a hit of West End glamour, that feels both indulgent and effortlessly cool ever since. Tucked inside the hotel, Dear Jackie is its seductive Italian dining room, all Murano glow, red silk walls and plush booths that could tell a few stories. The menu leans into refined Italian comfort with superior pasta and reimagined classics, making it an ideal spot to settle in for dinner.

With this exclusive Time Out offer, you can sink into Soho’s newest slice of dolce vita decadence for less with a three courses set meun and a glass of Champagne (worth £22). The perfect pre-theatre treat or the start of a night that might run on far longer than planned.

Get 33% off with vouchers, only through Time Out Offers

Cast your mind back to 1996. The Spice Girls released Wannabe, the Macarena was one of the biggest tunes in the charts, England reached the semi-finals of the Euros, and Dolly the sheep became the first cloned mammal. Relive it all (or experience it for the first time, if you weren’t born then) in this free exhibition at Barbican, celebrating the era of Cool Britannia. Mel B’s leopard print catsuit, Gerri Halliwell’s Union Jack print boots and Liam Gallagher’s tambourine are some of the items on display, curated by former Sun editor and its ‘Bizarre’ columnist, Dominic Mohan. 

This May bank holiday, you won’t need to leave the capital to get a slice of the iconic Italian coastline, as SicilyFEST is back taking over the Business Design Centre. And this time, it’s there for five whole days. Learn your cannoli from your arancini at the pop-up Sicilian food market – stands will be lined with gelato, pizzas and pretty desserts that will make your mouth and eyes water. Sicilian artists will be filling the air with quintessential performances, so you can completely absorb the spirit of the stunning island, and there’s a chance to get stuck into interactive classes led by some cracking Italian chefs, too.

As actor Yousef Sweid freely admits near the start of his solo show, the name Between the River and the Sea promises controversy – controversy that never really comes, because you see, he’s a bit of a centrist dad. But let’s be honest, Israel (and its associated controversies) is such an emotive subject that I’m sure the affable Sweid and his autobiographical monologue (co-written with its director Isabella Sedlak) might offend some people. But Sweid knows all that. And in this amusing, poignant and somewhat slippery hour he details a half century on the planet trying to avoid trouble. This is a moderate show and a modest one, but it’s a pleasure to spend time in Sweid’s garrulous company.

A sparse, small-scale mindbender, Exit 8 is based on the viral video game of the same name and, for the first few minutes, plays like it. An unnamed young man (Japanese pop star Kazunari Ninomiya) rides a cramped subway train to his temp job in Tokyo. As he disembarks, he receives a phone call from his ex-girlfriend. She’s pregnant. In his disorientation at the news, it takes him a moment to realise he’s walking in circles – down the same white-tiled hallway, past the same robotic NPC. Once the protagonist recognises that something is amiss, the perspective changes, and that’s when the game, for him, truly begins. The goal, of course, is to escape the maze by identifying patterns. But this advances the game’s threadbare plotting into an effective, if sometimes heavy-handed, metaphor for breaking the unchanging infinity-loop of one’s own life.

Finally, just shy of a decade after it was first announced as part of the £1.1 billion development of Stratford’s East Bank cultural quarter, the long-awaited V&A East is due to open to the public on Saturday. The 7,000-square-metre museum will bring together exhibits that speak to both east London’s creative heritage and the voices that are shaping contemporary culture across the globe today. Early visitors will be able to check out its Why We Make Galleries, a permanent display spread across two of the museum’s five floors and featuring 500 objects from the V&A’s collection, arranged into ten key themes addressing the most pressing issues in contemporary society. And its inaugural temporary exhibition The Music is Black: A British Story. 

Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx’s subversive ’00s classic Avenue Q, has been revived by Jason Moore, and is a fun piece of naughty noughties nostalgia that raises a smile from the sight of its fluffy yellow stage curtain onwards. Princeton (Noah Harrison) is a wet-behind-the-ears young puppet who has just graduated from university and is now looking for a place to live on Avenue Q, a shabby but affordable neighbourhood in outer NYC and gets enmeshed in the general goings on of his neighbours. It’s all very well done: Anna Louizos’s sets and Rick Lyon’s puppets look superb. While the humour of Lopez and Marx’s songs stands up well, with their big, bright, primary coloured tunes. As a heritage musical, it remains a delightful one-off.

This new immersive film is the latest show at Lightroom, and it’s a dive into his story that’s fully authorised by the David Bowie estate. Instead of narration, it’s told fully using voice clips from the man himself, as well as footage from the Bowie Archive in New York. It’ll be relaid in Lightroom’s signature style, which involves ultra high-powered projectors covering the walls, ceiling and floor with vivid imagery. It’s directed by Mark Grimmer, who led the design of the V&A’s David Bowie Is exhibition and went on to direct David Hockney: Bigger & Closer. Like all Lightroom shows, it’s designed to play on loop, and will be divided into themed sections including ‘theatricality, spirituality, songwriting and the transformative power of creativity’.

How often does a night at the theatre begin with an actual full-on karaoke session? That’s the set-up at Heart Wall. As pre-shows go, it’s a high-concept way to kick things off. But that makes sense. Heart Wall, written by Kit Withington and directed by Katie Greenall, is full of equally big ideas. This is a lively, emotive piece of work, providing one of the most fun nights at the theatre we’ve had in a long time. It centres on 23-year-old Franky (Rowan Robinson), who’s returned home, to an undisclosed town in the north of England, to surprise her parents. The father-daughter chemistry between Franky and Dez is instantaneous, even if his London-swelling daughter might look down her nose at her hometown. It’s a play full of sharp dialogue and emotion that will leave you profoundly moved.

Saltburn and Gone Girl star Rosamund Pike plays Jess Parks, a pioneering feminist judge, in Suzie Miller's three-hand play that feels more like a 100-minute monologue. Like its companion legal drama Prima Facie, which was a massive hit starring Jodie Comer, Inter Alia is a spectacularly demanding showcase for a female star, and Pike delivers the goods with stadium-level charisma, intelligence and flair. Miller’s play is based on interviews with female judges who juggle demanding careers with caring responsibilities and social lives: ‘inter alia’ means ‘among other things’. Punchy, thought-provoking drama, it has brought Jess and real women like her into the limelight.

Anya Reiss’s new adaptation of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House smartly amplifies the debt-related anxieties that underpin the 1879 original into something extremely modern and extremely nerve-wracking. Nora (Romola Garai) is an anxious, impulsive woman, who we first meet in her bougie rental house surrounded by obscene amounts of Christmas shopping. Her workaholic husband Torvald (Tom Mothersdale) is taken aback by the sprawl of purchases, but Nora remains brittly giddy. They are on the cusp of being rich. However, it’s all built on a lie. Reiss is a former Royal Court prodigy and this is her first stage play in almost a decade. And it’s really good! The best thing she’s done in theatre. Reiss’s updates aren’t just a modish reskinning but an impressively incisive, white-knuckle engagement with contemporary anxieties. 

A landmark exhibition exploring how Black British music has shaped culture in Britain and beyond. Items on display will include Joan Armatrading’s childhood guitar, looks worn by Little Simz and newly acquired photography by Dennis Morris and Jennie Baptiste. The exhibition’s opening will also feature a sound experience by Sennheiser, and will mark the launch of a the inaugural edition of a new festival that will take place annually each spring, bringing together the East Bank’s neighbouring cultural institutions, which include the London College of Fashion, the BBC Music Studios, Sadler’s Wells East and UCL East.

Robert Icke’s take on Romeo & Juliet has Sliding Doors scenes, wherein we see pivotal moments play out differently to Shakespeare’s plot, before a blinding flash of light resets the scene and we see the story take its inexorable turn for the tragic. At best, they’re an effective way of countering the fact that the bleak end of Shakespeare’s romantic tragedy is only arrived at by a series of mind-boggling coincidences and mishaps. Stranger Things star Sadie Sink’s gawky Juliet is very good, and when she and Noah Jupe’s puppyish Romeo set eyes on each other for the first time, it is electric. Toss in a gorgeous, drone-heavy electronic score from Giles Thomas, and you have something special. 

This Tony and Olivier Award-winning musical – adapted by Harvey Fierstein with songs by Cyndi Lauper from the 2005 Britflick – was first seen in the West End a decade ago. And now it struts back into town with energy to spare. Charlie Price (Matt Cardle) has reluctantly inherited his recently deceased dad’s Northampton shoe factory, which will be forced to close in a matter of weeks due to dwindling sales. But a chance encounter with cabaret and drag performer Lola (Johannes Radebe) and the broken heel of a boot she used to whack a couple of bigots sparks an idea. Together, can they meet a market need for durable, fabulous footwear while saving the factory by making boots not brogues? Even before the appearance of the inclusion Pride flag, there’s something joyfully subversive about keeping business local – a trope so often co-opted by the far right – by manufacturing high-heeled boots for drag queens. This production is a blaze of colour at a dismally grey time.    

Les Liaisons Dangereuses is a classic play. Starting life in 1782 as an epistolary novel, Christopher Hampton’s 1985 stage adaptation was a sensation, adapted into a hit 1988 film and clearly responsible for the ‘90s teen remake Cruel Intentions. This is a pretty good production of it, as you’d expect from the great Marianne Elliott’s first show at the NT in over a decade, with a to die for cast headed by Lesley Manville and Aiden Turner. The duo play callous, capricious, above all very sexy French toffs Marquise Isabelle de Merteuil and Vicomte Sébastien de Valmont, ex-lovers whose relationship has degenerated into callous game playing. It’s a really good production with two sensational leads, of a play that has long stopped being a sexy novelty and now kind of sits as a guilty pleasure. 

In 2022 66-year-old Veronica Ryan was the oldest artist to ever win the Turner Prize. Four years later Whitechapel Gallery is staging one of the biggest presentations of her work to date. Known for her prize-winning exhibition at Spike Island in Bristol, Ryan has also created comissions dedicated to the Windrush generation, which included giant marble and bronze sculptures of fruit. Through more than 100 works, Multiple Conversations will span Ryan’s multifaceted practice, which includes work with sculpture, textiles and on paper. As well as displaying her most recent creations, the exhibit will include rediscovered works from the 1980s – large-scale sculptures made from plaster and beaten lead, as well as vivid drawings.

Rebecca Lucy Taylor, the artist also known as Self Esteem, is a hugely versatile character actor, and here she plays the theatrical, theatre-literate singer Maggie Frisby – a minor rock singer, angry, amused and very drunk as her band disintegrates at a 1969 Oxford student ball. David Hare’s 1975 play Teeth ’n’ Smiles is a vehicle to fire Taylor up as she pours her heart and soul and cynicism at the music industry into the role of Maggie, combusting spectacularly – and at one point, almost literally – at the tail-end of the ’60s. 

With over 400 objects, including 100 ensembles and 50 artworks (by the likes of Salvador Dalí, Picasso and Man Ray), as well as accessories, jewellery, photographs, perfumes and an excellent collection of buttons, Schiaparelli presents a deep dive into the fantastical and surreal world of the fashion house. Founded on Paris’ Place Vendôme in 1927, the exhibition spans the 1920s to the present day, showing glorious garments from Creative Director Daniel Roseberry, who has been at the helm since 2019. The clothes truly are pieces of art and prove that haute couture could always do with a bit of humour. 

This is a big show of big paintings. Big, energetic, happy paintings which are just as enjoyable to stand in front of as one can imagine they were to make. Hurvin Anderson is the artist responsible, and the 80 paintings on show at Tate Britain amount to 30 years worth of work. Some date back to 1995 when he was an art student at the Royal College of Art; others were made this year (some he even finished off once they’d been hung). Looking at them feels like you’ve been carried somewhere else, if only briefly, sharing in that condition of being in one place while thinking about another.

Joo Young Won used to be head chef at the Michelin-starred Galvin at Windows, his new restaurant, Calong, is cosy and simple, with food made for sharing. Chef Joo was raised in South Korea, but began his cookery career in the UK, and for a long time focused on French technique. It shows. Calong sees him cooking dishes inspired by his native cuisine in a masterful light-touch fusion fashion. A warm pumpkin and crisp pear salad is delicately dressed with gochujang, cured Chalkstream trout with perfectly tart sesame and plum soy, the fried chicken is crunchy yet silky, and a BBQ onglet is sweet and tender with a bulgogi jus. It’s one of the most exciting restaurants Stoke Newington has to offer.